Pimm’s Fruit Salad and a Gathering
This year sees me celebrating my 49th birthday and not wanting to celebrate my 50th, I decided to hold a party. There’s nothing like seeing out your forties while you’re still in your forties! I know of some people who got very upset when they hit 30 but there’s nothing like hitting 50 to realise you’ve only got 30 years left if you’re lucky so there’s no time to lose getting upset over trivialities. Life is for living and there’s nothing like a party to live some great moments creating memories with good friends.
I love a party and having friends and family over enjoying good food and having a laugh. Once I get the notion to hold a party, I immediately jump into planning mode. I’ve been planning the menu for this party for some time, tweaking and testing recipes, adding and subtracting as I try to refine it. I’d decided fairly quickly on the savouries but I still had to sort the dessert part of the menu.
The first Friday in July I attended Chapterhouse Theatre Company’s outdoor production of Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles. I love open air theatre with the added bonus that you get to bring a picnic with you. All very civilised and very posh! The picnic gave me the opportunity to test Harry Eastwood’s Pimm’s Fruit Salad from her latest book, A Salad for All Seasons {Bantam Press} to see if it would make the party menu. And boy, did it hit the mark!!
I’ve made lots of fruit salad in my time, a mix of apples, oranges, grapes, bananas … you name it, the fruit went in it, immersed in a sugar syrup or simply orange juice. Harry’s salad comprises only a few ingredients – apples, strawberries, peaches, cucumber, mint and a Pimm’s syrup. I never used cucumber before and it was a revelation. But the biggest hit was the Pimm’s syrup. DELICIOUS is not enough to describe it. We couldn’t eat enough of it and I can tell you that if we had straws we’d be slurping the syrup {not so very posh!}.
More on the party next week but get yourself a bottle of Pimm’s and have some fun!
Enjoy!
Xx Paula
A Salad for All Seasons is available from Amazon and other good bookstores.
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